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RICE FIVE CENTS. $2.50 PER 100. 

TRUE REFORM 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED UNDER THE AUSPTCES OF 

Lincoln Council No. 16 

NATIONAL PROVIDENT UNION 



1 




GOV. WM. J. GORSUCH 



OF CONNECTICUT 



BEIllOBPOBT 

Cosx-. Dki>t. X. P. XJ. T HlOKS Bill 

iSgi 



TO THE READER. 



If you are a citizen of the N. P. U., a Trade Unionist, a 
Knight of Labor, or a member of any other association 
whose principles are based upon an abiding faith in the 
higher destiny of man, get your society to distribute at least 
one hundred copies of this pamphlet. That is, if you find 
herein the truth I have endeavored, to the best of my ability, 
to shadow forth ; for I do not presume, nor desire, to merely 
impose a task upon your kindly feeling toward 

The Author. 



TRUE REFORM 

ADDRESS 

DELIVERED UNDER THE AUSPICKS OF 

Lincoln Council No. 16 

NATIONAL PROVIDENT UNION 

BY 







GOV. WM. J. GORSUCH 



OF CONNECTICUT 



BEIDGEPOE 
Conn. Dept. N. P. U. 7 Hick 
1891 





*1* 



«1 



COPYRIGHT 

BY 

WM. J. GORSUCH 

1S91 



TRUE REFORM. 



In late years we have had a great rush of radical 
thought on social, political and industrial questions. 

Some timid folk view this phenomena with alarm, 
fearing it portends danger to our republic ; while others 
welcome with joy any innovation in politics, religion or 
economics, holding that previous concepts have become 
musty, and that the world needs a new revelation. 

The former cling with death-grip to whatever has 
been, or is, and resist, with desperate energy, any pro- 
posed modification or change ; while the latter zealously 
urge the rejection of all societary ideals born of the 
soul-anguish of generations dead and gone, and the ac- 
ceptance of the strangest and wildest vagaries, merely 
because they are asserted to be for the benefit of the 
people. 

To my mind both of these extreme positions are un- 
wise. 

Because a thought is old, it is not necessarily true ; 
nor does the fact of an opinion being new prove it to 
be the offspring of righteousness. Through this con- 
fusing labyrinth of error, old and new, there must run 



a line of truth ; and I believe that America holds in her 
hand the clue, which, if fearlessly followed, will lead 
mankind out of the dark caves of despotism, greed and 
hatred, into the clear light of liberty, equality and love. 

Roll back the curtain of the years, and, in the infancy 
of the race, we find first expressed in human action the 
fundamental principle of right by which we strive to 
guide our lives to-day. 

In that time, man was but little more than animal. 
Rude, savage, barbarian, we see him struggling onward, 
conscious alone of the cold that chills, the fire that 
warms, the hunger that gripes. Through the dank 
maze of the primeval forest he wanders, the prey of 
beasts scarce more savage than himself. Hairy, tailed, 
with protruding jaw, long forearm, and hand-like feet, 
there is little to distinguish him from the ape, except 
that he walks erect, and in his eye there shines a sad, 
pathetic, questioning light that shows the dawning con- 
sciousness of hopes and powers not known to other 
creatures of the woodland and the dell. The fauns and 
satyrs of mythologic lore were not inapt types of early 
man. 

Once upon a time, in those ancient days, one of these 
first men is gathering fruit and nuts and roots to carry 
to his loved ones that their hunger may be appeased, 
when a stronger and more brutal man leaps upon him, 
and, wresting- from him his treasure, drives him wounded 
and howling from the glen. 



3 

The weaker one hastens to his friends and relatives, 
and tells them how the tyrant of the iorest, who will 
not gather for himself, has again deprived him of his 
food, and bruised and torn his body. To their listen- 
ing ears the story is not new. For a long while this 
idle, savage giant, secure in his superior strength, has 
played the despot, and robbed, plundered and abused 
his weaker fellows at will. 

But now the times are ripe. Slowly in their dull 
minds glows the thought ; "Why should this be ? True, 
he is stronger than anyone of us, but we are numerous, 
Let us unite our strength, and we are stronger than 
he!" 

In their eyes burns a new flame, and in their souls 
quivers a new life, as, for the for the first time, is heard 
the voice of progress chanting: "He who oppresses his 
fellows shall die, to make way for liberty for all !" 

And unitedly they go forth, and fall upon the rav- 
ager, and rend him limb from limb. 

Thus society is born — association of units for mutual 
advancement and improvement — and thus the banner 
under which we march to day is first unfurled to the 
breeze. On it, between the stars and the stripes, writ- 
ten by the hands of those pre-historic freemen, we can 
yet read, " PROTECTION FOR WEAKNESS : RESISTANCE 

TO wrong! " 

As one of later date has said : 

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God," 



4 
The beginning of social development was the absorp- 
tion of all rights by the strongest, shrewdest or most 
wise, and the leaving to the people only the perform- 
ance of duties. The head-man assumed this position 
because he was the most able, and therefore he was 
called Konig — he who can — 'the King. 

The next step toward societary adjustment is for the 
people to reclaim from their rulers — Konig — these 
rights, and adding them to the duties, to affirm and 
exercise both rights and duties themselves. This, 
though, is possible only when the people become con- 
versant with the rights, and through interior unfold- 
ment, are able to wield them. 

True sovereignty, kinghood, nobility, cannot be con- 
ferred by parchment-writ, or accident of birth. No 
mere word of mouth can bestow this dignity. It can 
only be attained by growing to the altitude of the 
kingly estate. It is a condition which is not intended 
to be confined to a select few, but is to be enjoyed by 
all ; and modern social progress, is, in reality, but the 
gradual upgrowing of the people, of the all, to this 
plane of aristocracy—^///'//^ strength, best to rule. 

A proclamation of freedom issued to slaves, cannot 
emancipate them. It can only change the manner or 
form of their thraldom. For when men are enslaved, 
it is solely because they do not understand, because 
they Ken-not. When they become wise, they ever 



5 
cease to be slaves ; they then issue their own emanci- 
pation proclamation. 

If an ideal system was imposed upon men, contrary 
to their desire, they would be enslaved equally as much 
as if under Czarism. Progress must be, not an imposi- 
tion, but an evolution. 

For after all, the spirit of an age is the spirit that 
permeates the mass of the people of that age. From 
this source springs the divinity that agitates the stag- 
nant pool of custom. 

No man should flatter himself that he is a leader 
of men. In so far as his work succeeds it proves that 
he is in accord with the active aspirations of mankind ; 
that he is their duly accredited agent, but not their 
master. 

Hero-worship is a legacy from the wonder-loving 
past. A great man is to be honored, but not adored, 
or blindly followed, for he is, at best, but the mouth- 
piece of the general thought ; he crystallizes in word 
and deed that which they inchoately feel, but cannot 
utter. He cannot inaugurate reform or abolish abuses 
until the people have imbibed wisdom. 

Thus, in the last analysis, ignorance is the only ty- 
rant who can hold enchained the soul or the body of 
man. 

True reform consists in the extension of rights and 
duties among the people. In the perfect social inte- 
gration, all the people will enjoy and exercise, in com- 



plete equality, all rights and duties. But for persons 
to exercise 'these rights and duties they must be fit ; 
they must comprehend both the duties and the rights. 

No governments, laws, customs or beliefs, have stood 
in the way of mankind, long ere this, evolving the per- 
fect society. The only obstacle has ever been man's 
own unfitness ; and the grave error some of our most de- 
voted reformers make is in not fully estimating this 
fact. 

Merely demanding that more rights and privileges 
be granted is not only wasteful of valuable time and 
energy, but may retard healthy social development, 
for the asking for and the granting of such rights, car- 
ries with it the admission or inference that liberty and 
equality are boons to be vouchsafed by superiors to in- 
feriors. 

The truth is that until the people uplift and elevate 
themselves, the shouting of "Liberty and Equality" to 
the four winds of heaven is a delusion and a snare. 
Liberty and equality are as old as the first atomic par- 
ticle called into action by divine impulse— are un- 
created, are eternal, are God. They are not to be 
granted ; cannot be given; they are to be grown up to, 
and can be enjoyed only by those who thus gain them. 

When the people know what the people need, they 
rise to being ; they do not get being conferred on 
them. The former is freedom ; the latter would be 
slavery. 



7 

We find faint gleams of this God's truth flashing 
through the centuries, till lost in the dense mist of a 
forgotten past, but never till our fathers spoke did the 
world sense the reality of that immortal assertion : 
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are 
created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights; that .among these are 
the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness/' 

Equality is not an optional affair; is not something 
that may be withheld at the will of others, but is the 
attribute of each man, through the fact of his having 
been born. It is a bountiful repast, ever spread, wait- 
ing for whoever will to enter in and partake of the 
feast. 

Distorted and hackneyed as its phrases have been 
made by partisan politicians, our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence is simply an affirmation of man's inherent 
and inalienable right to grow ; and our National Con- 
stitution is a plain statement of the ways and means of 
this growth, and a guarantee of its perpetuation to gen- 
erations yet unborn. 

Our Constitution shows how the people may attain 
to the full exercise of their inherent rights, and at the 
same time avoid the danger of the Statehood being 
dominated by a soulless autocracy, or submerged and 
lost in the irresponsible despotism of a senseless mob. 
It is the palladium of our liberties. Deep-grounded in 
the hearts of the American people, it stands impregna- 



ble between the two extremes of a dictatorship, or a 
besotted rabble, and points with unerring skill the true 
road to freedom. 

This is clearly shown in Articles I, IX and X, of 
amendments. 

Art. I. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of 
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ; or abridging the free- 
dom of speech, or of the press, or of the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. 

Art. IX. The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights, 
shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

Art. X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Con- 
stitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States 
respectively or to the people. 

It has been said that our Constitution is a compro- 
mise. This is true ; but is that a reproach ? What is 
the meaning of a compromise? Some seem to think it 
means a sacrifice of the truth ; yet the reverse may be 
the case. 

Webster defines a compromise as "a reciprocal abate- 
ment of extreme demands, resulting in an agreement ;" 
and Edmund Burke says: "All government, indeed ev- 
ery human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue, and 
every prudent act, is founded on compromise and bar- 
ter." 

In every department of nature's kingdom it is through 
compromise that all healthy, organic growths are 
evolved ; and without such " reciprocal abatement of 



extreme demands " there would be either cessation of 
activity, or abnormal and imperfect development. 

The seed — a bean, for instance — planted in the soil 
to fertilize, and propagate its kind, affords an excellent 
illustration of this universal law of life. In the body 
of the bean reposes the bean-life or spirit, called the 
"germ," surrounded by compound substances, such as 
starch, sugar, &c. These substances are built up of the 
elements oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon. 
When the heat and moisture of the sun and earth come 
into relation with the compounds, sugar and starch, 
these substances begin to disintegrate — decay, as we 
call it — and fall back into their primal, elemental state 
of oxygen, hydrogen nitrogen and carbon, and, at the 
same time, set free the chemical force that held them 
combined. This process continues until the germ itself 
is reached. It, being a simple life-element, resists chemi- 
cal action and says: "Let me be ; let me alone!" 

So a conflict ensues ; a heated debate takes place ; 
chemical force crying: "Decompose ! Become inorgan- 
ic ! Die!" and germ-life shouting, "I will not ! lam 
satisfied! I will remain as I am!" 

This goes on until both sides are nearly exhausted, 
and finally the germ says: "Well, I'll tell you what I'll 
do. I won't die, but I'll spring upward into a higher 
organic form as a plant, and shower forth a whole crop 
of beans, if you will agree to help. Will that satisfy 
you ?" 



10 

And chemical force answers: "Yes; I accept the 
compromise. Anything rather than lie there doing 
nothing, sleeping the time away, so get up and grow!" 

And thus we have the vigorous plant, beautiful with 
flower, and later bending low beneath its weight of life- 
sustaining fruit, as the outcome of a compromise. 
Without this mutual concession, we would have had 
either the unfertile, unchanging germ, or corruption and 
death. 

So of our Constitution. Those who call it "a mere 
compromise," speak wiser than they know ; they praise 
when they would condemn ; for through compromise 
lies safety and progress. 

Few men are so wise as to know all the truth* Evert 
our brightest intellects cannot hope to be infallible, 
The separating of the true from the false in what each 
one holds, the merging of these various portions of 
truth into one composite yet harmonious whole, gives 
full-rounded expression to the highest thought of an 
age, and thus forms the sure foundation of a government- 
al frame-work best fitted to the needs of the people 
of that age. When the needs of the people expand, 
with the growth of their wisdom, the frame-work of the 
State must keep pace with this expansion, or give way 
to one better fitted to the people's needs. 

This course of evolution is Herbert Spencer's median 
line of progress. Equi-distant from wild erraticism r 
hungry for anything, so be it a change, and from barren 



II 

Conservatism, wedded to a petrified and outgrown past, 
it molds the plastic good of the new 'round and through 
the time-tested structure of the old, and thus gives us 
an organic being, instinct with the glow and glory of 
youth, yet possessing the tried strength of manhood, 
Conjoined to the ripe experience of age. 

This, friends, is our republic ; an organism instinct 
with the glow and glory of youth, yet erect in the 
strength of manhood, and crowned with the experience 
of age. Our republic, in which to realize a government 
of, by, and for the people, not through rashly experi- 
menting with peculiar and far-fetched theories, but 
through our learning how to exercise our rights in har- 
mony with its constitutionally free institutions. 

What are our free institutions ? Freedom of Wor- 
ship, Free Press, Free Speech, Free Judiciary, free and 
untrammelled use of the franchise in the utterance of 
our will ; and a retention by ourselves, as the people, of 
all rights not specifically granted to the United States, 
or to the States respectively. 

"But," it is objected, "these free institutions are 
more in name than in reality. It sounds well to an- 
nounce them, but practically they exist not for the 
toiling mass, but only for a special class/' 

There is a seeming truth in this criticism, and yet 
only seeming. 

Our rights are written in the basic law of the land, 
engraven upon the granite rock of human equality, and 



12 

uttered in the assertion of unital sovereignty. The law- 
has done its part, the republic has done its duty, and if 
we still slumber in indolence, or # grovel in abasement, it 
is not the fault of our institutions ; our own slavish in- 
ertia alone must justly bear the blame. 

The tools lie ready for the hand, waiting to be grasped, 
and shall we condemn the tools that the timber is not 
hewn, if we recline at ease, weaving bright fancies of a 
millennium that ought to be ? 

You will all agree that he would be a foolish farmer 
who would swear because the grain wasn't harvested, if 
he spent the day fishing for whales with a bent pin. 

If there is evil in our land, and God knows there is— 
evil of destitution, drunkenness, greed and crime, in a 
word, ignorance — it is to be cured, not by growling or 
dreaming, but by earnest labor, using with wisdom and 
skill the legally constituted means which the genius of 
our institutions provides. 

For there are no heaven-lent wings by which Olympus 
can be scaled. Slow and toilsome is humanity's evolu- 
tion from the low, the narrow, the crude, up to the high, 
the broad, the refined ; and the watchword of the day 
is, and must ever be: Education ! Education ! 

"Ye shall know the truth," we are told, "and the truth 
shall make you free.'* 

True. But to know, one must learn, and to learn, one 
must strive. Heaven, here on earth, or beyond the 



13 

mystic river of death, is to be gained alone by those 
who, through striving, deserve. " 

To our charter right of "the people peaceably to as- 
semble and petition for a redress of grievances," the ob- 
jection is sometimes made that such a right is a mere 
sarcasm, an empty pretence, by which the enslaved are 
deluded into believing they are free. 

This objection is not valid. To assemble means to 
discuss ; to discuss means to kuow and agree ; and 
when the people know and agree, and thus crystallize 
public opinion, our representatives ever hasten to obey, 
and enact our will. It is only when the people do not 
agree, and heedlessly leave matters in the hands of the 
politicians, that corruption and abuses creep in. 

You remember the old story of the birds and the hus- 
bandman. When the farmer said, "We'll have our 
neighbors over, and cut the wheat to-morrow," the 
mother-bird said to the little ones, "Don't worry, child- 
ren ; we won't move to-day." But when the farmer 
said, "We will get up bright and early in the morning, 
and cut the wheat ourselves," the old bird cried, "Hur- 
ry up, children ; we must get out of this at once !" 

Politicians — our statesmen — and editors are willing 
to pose as leaders and moulders of public opinion, but 
this claim on their part is, in reality, an almost unfound- 
ed assumption. They seldom strive to lead the people, 
and are usually very careful to keep just a little behind 



H 
the thought of the times. They feel the public pulse, 
and govern themselves accordingly. 

And they are wise in their day and generation ; for 
the lesson of the ages is, that whoever dares to preach 
a truth purer and higher than the masses are able to 
accept, must drain the hemlock-cup, or sweat drops of 
blood upon a Calvary cross. 

So the fact remains that the initiative of reform is in 
the hands of the people themselves. Political parties 
amount to but little, and whether our legislators be re- 
publican or democratic, is of small moment, except to 
those who draw the salaries. Whatever be the partisan 
complexion of those who sit in our deliberative, our law- 
making bodies, let a majority of the people once say, 
outside of party lines, "This is what we want done !" 
lo ! it is accomplished. 

But the people must speak in no uncertain accent, 
and they cannot so speak unless they first think. Our 
duty is to help them to think by doing what we can to 
educate ourselves and others in the true principles of 
American free-citizenship. 

To exercise the rights of a citizen requires something 
more than to cast a ballot as some political clique di- 
rects. 

We must possess a full knowledge of our duties to 
ourselves, our families and our country, and the manly 
courage to act in accordance with that knowledge, if we 
would be worthy of enjoying the blessings of liberty 



15 
and equality that our institutions are intended to confer 
and defend. 

And herein is work for the National Provident Union 
to do — work that, I believe, few organizations in the 
United States are so well-fitted to perform. The work 
of training the minds and souls of men to make them 
true citizens of what the Almighty Father said shall be 
a republic of independent and enlightened sovereigns. 

The N. P. U. has not yet taken the position it is en- 
titled to occupy among the educational agencies of our 
age, but I believe if we put forth the proper effort now, 
we can make the Order not only the largest and best 
fraternal insurance association in the land, but also one 
of the most effective means for instructing and strength- 
ening the people in the principles of sell-government. 

The N. P. U., and our republican government, are, as 
yet, in their infancy, but they are both formed on the 
same lines of evolutionary growth, and we, as citizens 
of the union, and as citizens of the republic, in striving 
to advance and strengthen the one, are perforce labor- 
ing for the other. Thus, all honest effort for either, 
makes us better and truer men and women, and worthier 
children of patriotic sires. 

What I have said of opportunities for educational 
work in the N. P. U. will apply with equal force to 
some other existing associations. I refer especially to 
the Trade Unions, and the Knights of Labor. There 



i6 

we find a magnificent field for the putting forth of such 
effort, if it be honestly and intelligently exerted. 

Through these bodies the great mass of the people 
can be reached ; and it is well to remember a fact 
which some of us seem prone to forget, namely, the real 
people of America are the workers, the producers, and 
not the ladies and gentlemen of elegant leisure. 

Some forms of government; such as the Empire, the 
Monarchy, the Autocracy, or the Oligarchy, are fixed 
and limited in their sphere of action, and to subject 
them to change would destroy them ; but a pure de- 
mocracy, such as ours, is susceptible of extension and 
development without in the least endangering the na- 
tional life. 

The former systems must in time petrify into a hard 
and unyielding shell of precedent and privilege, and the 
only power that can relieve the people is forcible and 
armed revolution. But the latter system, deriving its 
existence perennially from the inner and progressive 
life of the people, cannot harden, and must remain plas- 
tic and responsive to the newest and best thought of 
the age ; and thus, keeping pace with the people's 
growth, it must ever be the true expression of the peo- 
ple's will. Corrupt and venal when the people are vile, 
it becomes virtuous and just when the people's ideals 
are noble and pure. Revolution under the latter sys- 
tem would be simply suicide. It would be our cutting 
our own throats. 



17 
Thus again we are forced to assert, "There is but one 
panacea for all ills, physical or spiritual, to which the 
human body, or the body politic, is heir, namely: Edu- 
cation and Growth." 

The true reformer has learned that this education 
must begin with one's self. It is useless to preach truth, 
if we ourselves are false. Mere words of mouth cannot 
deceive the forces that make for progress. The genu- 
ine faith of a man is ever manifest in his influence, 
whether for good or evil. " Ye shall know them by 
their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of 
thistles?" 

A man is harshly condemning the present system and 
bitterly bemoaning his poverty-stricken lot. 

I ask him, " How many years have you drank rum?" 

He replies, "Fifteen years." 

I say, " Drink none for five years, and I'll guarantee 
you will have less cause to complain." 

"But," he replies, "if I had saved all I've spent for 
drink I would be no better off. If the whole people re- 
duced economy to a fine art, it would benefit nobody, 
for the ones to-day producing the luxuries would be 
thrown out of employment, and their competing for 
work would cut wages to the point of a bare living." 

This is a half truth, and therefore a whole error. 

If this man becomes a total abstainer he will not only 
Save what he now spends for drink, but he will lose less 



time recovering from sprees, he will develop greater 
skill through being more with tools and books, and less 
in saloons, and so he will earn more wages. Greater 
than all, he will have a clear head and steady nerves to 
seize and utilize chances to which to-day he is blind, 
and thus he will begin to grow out of his present whin- 
ing incapacity into the self-reliance and self-help of a 
manly man. 

If the great army of toilers will cease the use of strong 
drink, I venture to assert that there will be no reduc- 
tion of wages due to increased competition among the 
workers, but that their sober minds, and therefore intel- 
ligent ballots, will soon legislatively solve the vexed 
problem of Production versus Monopoly, and raise wages 
to the full earning power of labor. 

Some earnest folks believe there can be a short-cut to 
glory, and run wild after every new reform fad that ill- 
balanced minds conceive. They are mostly honest, but 
they are mistaken. The law of God, which is the law 
of growth, is from the inner, outward. It is first, soul- 
awakening, and then utterance in individual and social 
life. In time we advance beyond the illusions of youth. 
In time, and through suffering, we are forced to know 
that the universe is greater than we ; that here stand 
the eternal verities, and it is for us to conform there- 
with or die. 

Guizot, the eminent French historian, holds that a 
true civilization is one which tends to the improvement 



i 9 

of both the individual and the state ; while a false civil- 
ization develops either one at the expense of the other. 

According to that standard, our republic, in which 
the citizen and the state are in intimate and re-active 
touch, in which the status of the one determines the 
morality of the other, affords the most favorable oppor- 
tunity the world has ever known for the outworking of 
a true civilization. Such words of laudation for ^he 
wondrous achievements of our fair. republic of the west 
are not merely sickly sentiment, but convey a plain 
statement of a simple fact. 

In other times and nations, he who was born a peas- 
ant could never become a noble. The social lines of 
ruled and rulers were sharply and insurmountably drawn 
at birth. Here, in this age, we see the tailor, or rail 
splitter, sitting in the highest seat in the land, and the 
son of toil and privation becoming the king of finance. 

Mark you, I do not say that the creation of a few 
millionaires, attended by an army of paupers and tramps, 
is not a deplorable evil, temporary though it be, but it 
fades into utter insignificance in view of the tremendous 
fact that to-day millionaires can and do arise even from 
the ranks of those same paupers and tramps. 

What do I find so significant in that fact ? This: 

When nature gives birth to a new species, it does not 
spring into existence with numerous representatives, 
but through radiation and change, a single individual is 
first born, a type of the species which is to follow. Soon 



20 

the individuals increase in number, and the species 
grows and spreads until, in time, it overcomes and su- 
persedes the old ; and the new becomes the regular 
order of things. 

So I see, in this practical shattering of class privilege 
and prejudice, this breaking down of the barriers of 
caste, the birth and spread of a new species, of which 
the plutocrats of to-day are the mere forerunners. In 
the fullness of time there will not be, as now, a few op- 
pressive and arrogant — because ignorant — wealth-grub- 
bers, but when the new regime has worked out its spirit 
of equality of rights, there will have been a complete 
assimilation of prince, privilege, plutocrat and pauper, 
and the evolvement of a nation in which each citizen 
will be richer, in material and spiritual wealth, than any 
nabob of to-day. 

This will be the divine fruition of the titanic strivings 
of our sires. Our function is not to enjoy in compla- 
cent ease the present result of their labors, but to carry 
onward the ark of the covenant of God with man. 

We have here established the kingdom of man, the 
sovereignty of the people, the republic of humanity ; 
and, as our fathers dethroned monarchy, and our broth- 
ers abolished chattel-slavery, it is for us to break the 
final bonds of shortsighted selfishness that still shackle 
the bodies and souls of men. 

Thus realizing in America the reign of justice, of 
which prophets have spoken and poets have sung, the 



21 

will of God will be done on earth as in heaven ; and 
the influence of our example, permeating the farthest 
stretches of the world, will finally unite in one brother- 
hood, all races, all the children of men. 

And far beyond the ebbing tide of time there reaches 
still another vista of infinite possibility for the soul of 
man, toward which Hope lifts her radiant face, as she 
whispers to the listening ear of Faith ; 

"Doubt not. Whoever will, shall know both life and 
love eternal." 



To sum up : all rights of man are included in the one 
right to develop, to improve, to become better ; in a 
word, TO GROW. This excludes and nullifies the privi- 
lege of debasing, of degrading, of bestializing one's 
self. 

True reform is that which will make easier of attain- 
ment and more secure, the means of exercising said 
right to grow. 

This is fully and completely done by our institutions 
of Free Worship, Free Speech, Free Press, Free Judi- 
ciary and Free Ballot ; and their constitutional guar- 
antee. 

Therefore, we conclude : true reform is always in 
harmony with American institutions, and always begins 
with, and works out from, the individual. 



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027 293 719 



\_Extract from South Noriualk Sentinel, October 14, iSgiS\ 
THEIR DELIBERATIONS CLOSED. 



A SYNOPSIS OF THE PRINCIPAL ADDRESS OF THE FEDERATION OF 
LABOR CONVENTION. 

The Connecticut Branch Federation of Labor, which has been in ses- 
sion in Germania Hall, closed yesterday afternoon. The forty-odd del- 
egates present represented over 20,000 laboring people in this State. 
The convention was a very harmonious one. The principal address of 
the convention was given by William J. Gorsuch-, of the Central Labor 
Union, Bridgeport, a synopsis of which is given below : 

To all organizations of men there are two gospels presented, one of 
which must be accepted as an ideal, or rule of action. Since man was first 
formed he has had to thus choose. These gospels typify the conceptions 
of God and Satan, good and evil, as we find them floating through the 
centuries that are gone. 

To these ideals I would call your most earnest attention. I have no- 
ticed in some of the thoughts expressed to-day a slight leaning toward 
what I consider the evil side, and would warn you that if this be your 
rule of action, the result to the organization and to the cause of labor 
must be disastrous. 

These two gospels are the one of Hatred and Force, the other of Love 
and Growth. 

Hatred and Force flow back upon and destroy those who follow their 
banner, while Love and Growth lead mankind out of darkness and des- 
potism into the pleasant valleys of peace and joy. 

All men are built about alike, are formed on the same plan. If you 
appeal to them in the name of hate they will meet force with force. If 
you appeal to them in the name of love and brotherhood the well-springs 
of humanity will break down the selfish barriers of greed and freely give 
forth blessings that cannot be gained by the strong hand of might. 

Let us follow the teachings of the Nazarene who said: "Do unto 
others as ye would have others do unto you," and I dare prophesy that 
through organization humanity will be educated into evolving a perfect 
social organism in which there will be no longer masters and slaves, but 
only free men. This will be the realization of America's dream of 
equality. But remember it cannot be imposed by force, but must be an 
evolution based on fraternity, under the guidance of love. 

Mutual concession means progress, while the highest ideal of justice 
carried into effect through compelling people to accept it contrary to 
their wish, would enslave and not emancipate them. 

With education as the means, and growth as the end, I can see great 
good for the Federation to do, and I believe you will be wise enough to 
effectively forward that work. 




r 



THE 

NATIONAL PROVIDENT UNION, 



A Fraternal Insurance Co, 

I?icorporated u?ide?- the Laws of N. Y. 

Admits 'Women on the same terms as Men, 
from 18 to 55 years of age, 

AND INSURES THEM FOR 

$1,000, $2,000, or $3,000. 

Has 86 Councils and (i.XOO Members. 

Is One of the Cheapest and Best. 

Pre-eminent in Educational Features for the uplift- 
ing of Humanity, and the attainment of 
Just Social Relations. 

Male and Female Organizers Wanted. 

For full particulars apply to 

JOHN L. KENDALL, 

Room r48, Times Building. New York, N. Y. 



Keystone Dust-Proof Railroa 




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Fraternal and Labor Organizations can readily add to 
their treasury, and at the same time supply members and 
friends with high-grade Watches at wholesale price, on easy 
weekly payments. Have your Secretary write for terms and 
circulars explaining our method of doing business. 

W. J. GORSUCH, Gen'l Agent. 

KEYSTONE WATCH CLUB COMPANY, 

Penn Mutual Building, 

Philadelphia, Pa. 



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